Far reaching pleasures will be at hand – Anemone Tube reveals a series of three CDs entitled “The Three Worlds: Allegory of Vanity / Forget Heaven / Vanity of Allegory”, referencing a cosmological treatise on the universe from the Theravada Buddhism of the 14th century, the subject matter of which is the description of three levels of existence of all beings and mythical creatures.

This extensive retrospective release contains selected tracks from various tapes released between 1997 and 1999 - mostly rare and unavailable today - as well as yet unreleased tracks recorded between 1997 and 2013, a.o. outtakes from the “Death Over China” recordings, handpicked and recontextualized by Anemone Tube, representing the project’s roughest and most atmospheric material up to date, ranging from depressive ritual experimental ambient over dark rhythmic industrial soundscapes to whirlwind noise. Sharply mastered by Hunter Barr for a powerful, contemporary sound, each CD comes in a 6-panel digifile featuring beautiful photography by Dario Lehner and is available as single CD as well as a limited edition 3 CD set in a lavish slipcase with poster, sticker and patch.

“The Three Worlds” is a work about transience on many levels, perfectly elucidated in the Buddhist Sutra “Far Reaching Pleasures”, “The three worlds are transient like clouds in autumn / Birth and death of all beings unfold like a dance / Their lives rush away like a mountain stream / Vanish like lightning in the sky”, which serves as the contextual framework for the CD series and is translated in the most beautiful and poetic fashion with three painstakingly arranged photographic scenes based on vanitas symbolism of old masters’ paintings.

The still life composition of the “Allegory of Vanity” cover references an abundance of those symbols: jewellery, a pocket watch, a catholic hymnal, skull and bones, withered flowers, a tipped over jug of wine, an extinguished candle, etc. Two collaboration tracks with Yggdrasil from 1997, two from the “Allegories for the Future” cassette and an unreleased track from 1998 are a perfect representation of Anemone Tube’s early old-school industrial / power-electronics phase, and yet proof that both the musical approach and the topical background were already fully developed at that stage.

“Forget Heaven” addresses more celestial matters and shows the artist playing with soap bubbles (a classic vanitas symbol as well, a hint at the fleetingness of the moment) – reflections of light in the dark create the image of a starry sky, the universe. The CD features the entirety of the “Forget Heaven“ cassette release, plus three compilation and two unreleased tracks. The sound spectrum is more immense, from aggravating noise to ethereal, ritual beauty.

The object photograph “Vanity of Allegory” plays with the dissolution of all phenomena, the transience of all things, all allegories, featuring an extinguished candle, jewellery – and the artist himself, vacuously pointing his finger a skull laughing at the spectator from the mirror. All that is combined with poetry suggesting the dissolution of the ego, seemingly closing the circle. Besides collected tracks from old and recent cassette releases and compilations, this also features three unreleased tracks from the “Death Over China” recordings and therefore represents the newest cut from the trilogy and thus musically bridges the gap to the recent works of Anemone Tube with their profound depth and complexity of sound.

Far reaching pleasures will be at hand – Anemone Tube reveals a series of three CDs entitled “The Three Worlds: Allegory of Vanity / Forget Heaven / Vanity of Allegory”, referencing a cosmological treatise on the universe from the Theravada Buddhism of the 14th century, the subject matter of which is the description of three levels of existence of all beings and mythical creatures.

This extensive retrospective release contains selected tracks from various tapes released between 1997 and 1999 - mostly rare and unavailable today - as well as yet unreleased tracks recorded between 1997 and 2013, a.o. outtakes from the “Death Over China” recordings, handpicked and recontextualized by Anemone Tube, representing the project’s roughest and most atmospheric material up to date, ranging from depressive ritual experimental ambient over dark rhythmic industrial soundscapes to whirlwind noise. Sharply mastered by Hunter Barr for a powerful, contemporary sound, each CD comes in a 6-panel digifile featuring beautiful photography by Dario Lehner and is available as single CD as well as a limited edition 3 CD set in a lavish slipcase with poster, sticker and patch.

“The Three Worlds” is a work about transience on many levels, perfectly elucidated in the Buddhist Sutra “Far Reaching Pleasures”, “The three worlds are transient like clouds in autumn / Birth and death of all beings unfold like a dance / Their lives rush away like a mountain stream / Vanish like lightning in the sky”, which serves as the contextual framework for the CD series and is translated in the most beautiful and poetic fashion with three painstakingly arranged photographic scenes based on vanitas symbolism of old masters’ paintings.

The still life composition of the “Allegory of Vanity” cover references an abundance of those symbols: jewellery, a pocket watch, a catholic hymnal, skull and bones, withered flowers, a tipped over jug of wine, an extinguished candle, etc. Two collaboration tracks with Yggdrasil from 1997, two from the “Allegories for the Future” cassette and an unreleased track from 1998 are a perfect representation of Anemone Tube’s early old-school industrial / power-electronics phase, and yet proof that both the musical approach and the topical background were already fully developed at that stage.

Music composed, mixed & edited by Anemone Tube, except 1 + 2 composed, recorded and edited by Yggdrasil and Anemone Tube February – April 1997, previously released on Wald split and collaboration cassette (Darkness Productions/ Transfixional Entertainment, 1997). 3 recorded December 1998, previously unreleased. 4 + 5 recorded 1998,
previously released on Allegories For The Future cassette (Loud!, 1999).

Far reaching pleasures will be at hand – Anemone Tube reveals a series of three CDs entitled “The Three Worlds: Allegory of Vanity / Forget Heaven / Vanity of Allegory”, referencing a cosmological treatise on the universe from the Theravada Buddhism of the 14th century, the subject matter of which is the description of three levels of existence of all beings and mythical creatures.

This extensive retrospective release contains selected tracks from various tapes released between 1997 and 1999 - mostly rare and unavailable today - as well as yet unreleased tracks recorded between 1997 and 2013, a.o. outtakes from the “Death Over China” recordings, handpicked and recontextualized by Anemone Tube, representing the project’s roughest and most atmospheric material up to date, ranging from depressive ritual experimental ambient over dark rhythmic industrial soundscapes to whirlwind noise. Sharply mastered by Hunter Barr for a powerful, contemporary sound, each CD comes in a 6-panel digifile featuring beautiful photography by Dario Lehner and is available as single CD as well as a limited edition 3 CD set in a lavish slipcase with poster, sticker and patch.

“The Three Worlds” is a work about transience on many levels, perfectly elucidated in the Buddhist Sutra “Far Reaching Pleasures”, “The three worlds are transient like clouds in autumn / Birth and death of all beings unfold like a dance / Their lives rush away like a mountain stream / Vanish like lightning in the sky”, which serves as the contextual framework for the CD series and is translated in the most beautiful and poetic fashion with three painstakingly arranged photographic scenes based on vanitas symbolism of old masters’ paintings.

“Forget Heaven” addresses more celestial matters and shows the artist playing with soap bubbles (a classic vanitas symbol as well, a hint at the fleetingness of the moment) – reflections of light in the dark create the image of a starry sky, the universe. The CD features the entirety of the “Forget Heaven“ cassette release, plus three compilation and two unreleased tracks. The sound spectrum is more immense, from aggravating noise to ethereal, ritual beauty.

Far reaching pleasures will be at hand – Anemone Tube reveals a series of three CDs entitled “The Three Worlds: Allegory of Vanity / Forget Heaven / Vanity of Allegory”, referencing a cosmological treatise on the universe from the Theravada Buddhism of the 14th century, the subject matter of which is the description of three levels of existence of all beings and mythical creatures.

This extensive retrospective release contains selected tracks from various tapes released between 1997 and 1999 - mostly rare and unavailable today - as well as yet unreleased tracks recorded between 1997 and 2013, a.o. outtakes from the “Death Over China” recordings, handpicked and recontextualized by Anemone Tube, representing the project’s roughest and most atmospheric material up to date, ranging from depressive ritual experimental ambient over dark rhythmic industrial soundscapes to whirlwind noise. Sharply mastered by Hunter Barr for a powerful, contemporary sound, each CD comes in a 6-panel digifile featuring beautiful photography by Dario Lehner and is available as single CD as well as a limited edition 3 CD set in a lavish slipcase with poster, sticker and patch.

“The Three Worlds” is a work about transience on many levels, perfectly elucidated in the Buddhist Sutra “Far Reaching Pleasures”, “The three worlds are transient like clouds in autumn / Birth and death of all beings unfold like a dance / Their lives rush away like a mountain stream / Vanish like lightning in the sky”, which serves as the contextual framework for the CD series and is translated in the most beautiful and poetic fashion with three painstakingly arranged photographic scenes based on vanitas symbolism of old masters’ paintings.

The object photograph “Vanity of Allegory” plays with the dissolution of all phenomena, the transience of all things, all allegories, featuring an extinguished candle, jewellery – and the artist himself, vacuously pointing his finger a skull laughing at the spectator from the mirror. All that is combined with poetry suggesting the dissolution of the ego, seemingly closing the circle. Besides collected tracks from old and recent cassette releases and compilations, this also features three unreleased tracks from the “Death Over China” recordings and therefore represents the newest cut from the trilogy and thus musically bridges the gap to the recent works of Anemone Tube with their profound depth and complexity of sound.

Music composed, mixed & edited by Anemone Tube. 1 recorded 2013, previously unreleased. 2–4 recorded 2007 – 2008 (Death Over China recording session), previously unreleased. 5 recorded 1998, previously released on Deafness Is Not A Gift compilation CD (Deafborn, 2000). 6 recorded 2012, prev. released on the The Transfiguration Of The Image cassette (Danvers State, 2013). 7 recorded 1998, edited 2012, previously released on Anomalous Silencer 3 comp. CD (Napalmed, 1999). 8 recorded 1998, prev. released on the Allegories For The Future cassette (Loud!, 1999). 9 recorded 2008 and 2012, previously released on This Dismal World split cassette with Dissecting Table (Black Horizons, 2013).

Acclaimed by Evolver magazine as “already a legend in his lifetime”, singer-songwriter Nikolas Schreck’s initiatory application of music, ritual and theater formally began in 1984 when he returned to the West from a life-changing spiritual pilgrimage in Egypt to found the shapeshifting musical ensemble Radio Werewolf, a nine-year sonic magic operation which concluded in 1993. After pioneering early Los Angeles Gothic and deathrock with the band’s first incarnation, Radio Werewolf’s European phase was hailed by Christopher Walton of the band Endura for “simultaneously pre-empting and giving birth to the dark-ambient and ritual-industrial scene of the 1990’s.”

Schreck has previously collaborated musically with Zeena, John Murphy, Death in June, Non and Sir Christopher Lee, whose first solo album he produced. In 2015’s Kingdom of Heaven album “XXIII”, as music site African Paper noted, Schreck “dove deep into the realms of American pop culture”, breaking genre boundaries by bringing his distinctive dark voice to an eclectic spectrum including Gospel, space rock and neo-classical Prog. Marking a new landmark in Nikolas Schreck’s ever mutating genre-defying musical voyage The Futura Model takes its listeners on a retro-futurist audio adventure in cosmic avant-pop that celebrates the joys of extraterrestrial sex, plunges to the icy depths of interstellar alienation, and soars towards the Gnostic mysteries of the trans-human state.

Recorded in Berlin shortly before Schreck and his band debuted the song at their memorable Leipzig performance Der Schwarze Planet hailed as one of the ‘’Best Concerts at WGT 2017’’, the singer’s evocative Sinatra-in-space croon, masterfully accompanied by the glacial synths of keyboardist Winfried Strauss, the powerful pulsations of bassist Ohnesorg, and the furious battery and percussion of drummer Heathen Rae, propels The Futura Model to sonic regions unknown.

Offering a tantalizing taste of Nikolas Schreck’s forthcoming album, this special limited collector’s edition EP allows you to hear the song performed from three different aural perspectives, including the propulsive Parallel Universe Version and a moody Late Night Supernova Version. In keeping with Schreck’s current practice of continually deconstructing and reimagining his repertoire in live performance, each version of The Futura Model reveals hidden facets of the song’s multi-levelled essence.
Perfectly complementing the sleek alien textures heard on the triad of songs is cover art featuring a portrait of Nikolas by Zeena Schreck and typography & design by The Epicurean created exclusively for this release.

Desolation: total, utter, without remit. Departure, loss, absence, yawning valleys of noise. The overture moans from the terminal ward. The humiliation of the cadaver, the scouring of abandoned houses and rubbish heaps, a planet blasted by the fruits of hubris. The last sigh of bathos: "It is finished“.

Such is the subject matter and sentiment of this follow-up to the much acclaimed albums “Snowdrops From A Curate's Garden“ and „Towers of Silence“ which put Last Dominion Lost firmly on the throne of post-industrial music. “Abomination of Desolation” is consistent with their development into a dark and profound direction, and yet saturated with the noise and feedback that taps deep into the genre’s conscience: Metallic percussion and the screams of terror, ritual chants and anxious atmospheres, all used and abused in order to create the most accurate soundtrack of desolation.

By the fans, “Abomination of Desolation” will be met with mixed feelings – as recordings began with John Murphy in 2015 and through his untimely death that year had to be finished without him, the acknowledged grandsigneur of post-industrial music. The album’s theme and musical approach were originally intended by John for a KRANK release: An electronic album, reflecting on John’s experiences when he was first hospitalized, comatose, and hooked to a breathing machine which was constantly creating bizarre sounds.

The result stands as a brief and concise display of the group’s ability to create an unmistakable old school sound with contemporary production value. The album runs for ten tracks clocking in less than 40 minutes total and features new member Till Brüggemann (Gerechtigkeits Liga), as well as guests Nikolas Schreck, Lori Goldston and John Murphy’s beloved wife Annie Stubbs among others. With a firm electronic/analogue backbone, a delicate contrast of percussions of various origins and uncanny vocals, this is a truly dark affair, and while towards the end of the journey some more aggravating feedback loops crawl in, it never gets upfront aggressive.

With the crisp mastering job of Hunter Barr it is safe to say that “Abomination of Desolation” will not lag behind its predecessors at all, but forge their deserved status as genre icons.

PROCEED WITH INQUIRY comprises video works, live performances and collaborations by radical Swiss sound artist DAVE PHILLIPS, sonically active since 1987, part of the notorious SCHIMPFLUCH GRUPPE (with Rudolf Eb.er, Joke Lanz) since 1991, having left his signature in numerous bands, projects and collaborations.

DAVE PHILLIPS uses sound as a means to activate primordial emotions otherwise hidden underneath the debris of civilization. His concept is called “Humanimalism” accordingly, meaning a state of mind that overcomes religious, material und supremacist charges of evolution, acknowledges itself as part of a whole and has grown into an empathic, conscious and connected creature allowing emotion and instinct their equal part in decision-making.

This collection presents his multifaceted work in composition, performance, psycho-acoustics, sonic rituals, voice, video, field recordings, objects and electronics, etc. in a yet unknown complexity and coherence of motion pictures. His performance work is revealed in all its undiluted brutality, the urgency and topicality of his work and his message is clearly evident, captivating and intensely documented.

Along with DAVE PHILLIPS’ video works created between 2014 and 2016, the DVD is a document of unique solo live actions and the notorious Paris 1996 performance of SCHIMPFLUCH-GRUPPE, as well as recent collaborations with G.X. JUPITTER LARSEN, and video artists PAKISE AKIN, JAN VAN HASSELT and REMOTE-CONTROL RECTUM, who in turn created their visual interpretations of PHILLIPS' audio works. It all amounts to a mind-expanding experience, playing with altered perception and throwing back the viewer onto his own vision.

Related to Nietzsche`s notion of the Wagnerian music drama as a revelation of the abysmal truth about man, “In the Vortex of Dionysian Reality” allures us into the Dionysian dreamland, where tragedy reigns, in pursuit of the ultimate oneness. With its washes of noise and layers of piercing feedback on a subbase of wavering synths, it is a maelstrom of sound generating a hallucinatory reality. The atmosphere oscillates between destructiveness and aggravating frenzy, between the archaic and the sacral, between frenzied passion and abyssal melancholy, serving the mythical experience of music in a world where language has failed as a method of communication and music figures as the primordial form of expression.

As he considers humanities to have reached their limit, young Nietzsche hopes to find ultimate spiritualization and idealization in the reborn myth. Music alone (“our German masters”), as the primeval form of poetry and revelation of true Dionysian wisdom, may achieve triumph over the Apollonian shallow world of apparition.

With his timely musical rendition of mythical experience as “In the Vortex of Dionysian Reality”, Anemone Tube conveys an emotionally and mentally charged album which reveals his soft spot for progressive post rock metal acts like O.L.D. /JAMES PLOTKIN, AMUSEMENT PARKS ON FIRE or BLUT AUS NORD. Their special approach of dreamy melodies vs. atonal, discordant sounds is skillfully recreated through polyphonic synths lines, which are then modulated into feedback and added for good measure.

Carrying the same title as the 2015 cassette EP release on The Epicurean, this CD with its 40+ minutes total length and five all new, yet unreleased tracks is less a mere re-release, but rather a full stand-alone album, featuring Ukrainian dark ambient artist MONOCUBE on one track, as well as including sounds by Russian avantgardists POST SCRIPTVM and sound processing by French sound artist PACIFIC 231.

“Anemone Tube has been synonymous with the very highest quality of conceptually hyper charged drone ambient. ‘In the Vortex of Dionysian Reality’ only adds more to this setting high of the bar to new standards of intensity and passionate processing of sound in supremely and astutely philosophical realms.”
– Vital Weekly

“Some of Anemone Tube’s strongest work to date and yet another demonstration of his ability to create deeply evocative soundscapes built around melodious elements, sculpted field recordings and squalling feedback.”
– Noise Receptor

“Shoegaziges Rauschen und melancholische Schönheit.”
– African Paper

“It is built with so many different tonal changes and distortions that no matter what you choose to get out of it (...), you will be able to experience something unique.”
– Resounding Footsteps

Anemone Tube’s third release of the “Suicide Series“ tetralogy is an immersive industrial music album and the most ambitious and complex work yet, a long-term project of no less than 6 years, pursuing a highly sophisticated approach full of cross-cultural and historical references. Painting a sonic landscape, “Golden Temple” is perfectly real and dreamlike at the same time, endorsing archaic, mythological and worldly ideals alike. Beauty and evil, the profane and chaos, apocalypse and hope – Anemone Tube keeps account and observes the antagonist forces of life.

Composed of raw urban field recordings collected in Japan and China, combined with layers of piercing feedback and sinister hovering synth melodies, “Golden Temple” confronts you with an all-embracing atmosphere of aggrieving darkness and glorious harshness, fathoming the possibilities of the genre. To ensure due impact, it has been sharply engineered to perfection by mastermind James Plotkin.

Pursuing radical psychological effects of sound, the 13+ minutes initiation “L`Homme Et Les Sirenes” is a mind-bending journey into the human psyche, a slowly emerging sinister landscape evoking man’s intrinsic imbalance with (its own) nature, followed by the noisy debris and crushing buildup of “Apocalyptic Fantasy” as well as “Tower Of Evil”, which is the central piece of the album, conceptually and musically, multi-layered and sample-heavy, related to Tokyo’s Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, which is regarded by natives as a symbol for the uninhibited commercialization of life. “Negation Of Myth” descends into a barren, metallic darkness, radiating an equivocal sense of melancholy, before “Sea Of Lights (Golden Temple)” ascends in sparkling brightness and divinity. The evanescent bleakness of “Anthropocene - The Dark Abyss Of Time” finishes the main part of the album on a perversely promising, almost calm, spiritual note.

After the purely fantastic “Dream Landscape” conjuring up an apocalyptic vision and the dark, brooding landscape of “Death over China” slowly spreading as thick smog (as a consequence for China’s uncompromising economical and societal development creating irreparable environmental harm), the semi-fictional work “Golden Temple” is the series’ logical sequel. It suggests a (meta)physical landscape, here in form of global cities and metropolises proudly and brightly soaring in darkness, and bestowing golden radiance and divine beauty. With its alluring metaphorical world of images, signs and sounds it is the very symbol of our innermost longings, desires and fears and our attempts to escape from a disconcerting reality. The “Golden Temple” is comforting and threatening at the same time: consoling as it promises to reveal the secrets of beauty, threatening as it becomes a mirror of our secret death wish.

Strongly influenced by Pasolini’s cinematic masterpiece “Medea”, which evolves around the subject matters of estrangement from traditional values, the loss of contact with the mythical and the sacred in an increasingly rationalized and consumerist society, Anemone Tube brings matters to a head with an invocation of religiously charged symbolism, with the “Golden Temple” acting as more than a singular viewpoint, but as a meta-sign, functioning in its paramount acknowledgement and acceptance of complex, sometimes contradictory subject matter.

Supported by the use of ancient and contemporary imagery, literary and cinematic references reproduced in the lavish accompanying booklet Anemone Tube creates different narrative levels, juxtaposes contemporary western and long-standing Asian culture, plays with symbolic meanings and values – however, while doing so, never takes an unequivocal stand.

Anemone Tube with his varied interests and approaches always strives to present a holistic work of art, and “Golden Temple” works on many levels accordingly. The considered use of field recordings and samples, the arrangement of old masters’ paintings, contemporary photos and a variety of quotes from literature and movies – nothing is random, everything is part of the big picture. “Golden Temple” is a multi-facetted recording, absorbing and inspiring as well as a complex concept waiting to be discovered. Quality time lies ahead for those who get involved and visit the golden temple!

Release date: 26 July 2017
Format: 12" LP & download
Playtime: 39 min
Packaging: “Golden Temple” special Japan edition 12“ LP comes in golden/black cover, printed on 350g image paper with Japanese obi strip, a golden miniature bodhisattva statue, a golden ribbon for refuge in a small red cloth bag and a golden joss paper (“hell money” to be burned at funerals as an offering for the deceased to ensure a fortunate rebirth) with a poem.
Limited edition: 100 copies, hand-numbered. LP version comes with exclusive track ”Ondokusan (The Infinite Light)”, not included on the CD.

_
REVIEWS

“The album is as dark as the large intestine of the devil. Aggressive and fluctuating, mysterious (...).”
Rating: 9,25 of 10 – Mentenebre

“At this moment you can hardly find anything better in history of industrial/noise.”
Rating: 9,5 of 10 – Dark Entries

“Certainty one of the most authentic industrial releases in recent decades.”
– Darkroom

“Noting the sophisticated levels achieved on earlier Anemone Tube albums, both from conceptual and musical perspectives, ‘Golden Temple’ is a work which has exceeded the emotive heights of Stefan Hanser’s own rather imposing high water mark. (...) Anemone Tube have distinctive and individual sound which is essentially without comparison (…an equilibrium of structure & chaos and a balancing of harmony & disharmony). This album has been long awaited and is a veritable feast for the eye, ear and mind (...)” – Noise Receptor

Under the headline “Litaniæ Mortuorum Discordantes” Anemone Tube and Post Scriptvm present a collaborative album with a truly unique concept: Originally applied to a particular style of ancient ritual music, in the Classical era the term Litaniae Mortuorum Discordantes attained a negative connotation and was used to criticize those compositions – which, instead of instilling listeners with the desired pious euphoria, incriminated them with a sense of dread, existential anxiety, feelings of death and decay. Finding this aesthetic choice to be most appropriate for the present era, the two post-industrial projects attempted to create their own “Discordant Death Litanies” for the XXI century.

The idea is culled from a semi-fictional biography of Johann Sebastian Bach, written by a 19th century Russian author. In the chapter describing Bach‘s childhood and early education, his older brother – who was also his music teacher and mentor – dissuades him from composing those “Litaniæ Mortuorum Discordantes” as they dangerously steer the Christian liturgy into a “wrong” direction of primordial chaos. In reality Bach never dealt with such dark notions, but created the most versatile and accomplished musical glorifications of the Christian god ever composed.

Yet tempted by the imagination of real “Litaniæ Mortuorum Discordantes”, Anemone Tube and Post Scriptvm stage a linear, gradually unfolding “oratorio” which begins with layers of lush brass synths resounding a time and place enveloped in ancient mythical beauty. The pristine serenity, however, slowly deteriorates through the influx of anguish, social decay and profanity. Raw field recordings, throbbing electronics, metallic tremors, distant voices and chants portrait a life of numbness and confusion, where man – tormented by ignorance, ignoble desires and anger – has become a plaything of insane “Weltanschauungen” and the commercialization plague. In a world where spirituality is reduced to rituals of sadness, the prophetic – and confirmed – certitude that the end of civilization is close at hand prevails.

V/A “ALL MY SINS REMEMBERED - THE SONIC WORLDS OF JOHN MURPHY, A COMPILATION AND TRIBUTE”

“All My Sins Remembered” is a tribute to Australian musician John Murphy, who died on the 11th of October 2015, and at the same time a charity project with all proceeds from the sales going to his widow.

John Murphy was an inveterate collaborator, contributing to the most high-profile bands of the industrial scene, not only because he was such a versatile musician of immense talent, but also because he was such a great collaborator. His warm-heartedness was the basis of decade-spanning relationships with prestigious musicians; his perfection and reliability in both composition and preparing performances was common knowledge; as a session drummer he would fit in organically with the bands that employed him. As a result, a large number of musicians agreed happily and instantly to become a part of this project.

With an enormous effort and the help of many friends we have put together this compilation, featuring the vast majority of the projects John Murphy was involved with – whether as a solo musician, contributor, full band member or session musician. Carefully curated and compiled, it follows the chronology of his career, starting with his high school band MANDRIX and following through all the way to his last studio recordings with LAST DOMINION LOST.

A major part of this compilation are tracks featuring John himself, a treasure of yet unreleased recordings with ASSOCIATES, SHINING VRIL, KRANG, KRANK, BROWNING MUMMERY, KNIFELADDER, SOOTERKIN FLESH, BLOOD AND IRON, WERTHAM, FORESTA DI FERRO and GERECHTIGKEITS LIGA, as well as rare collaborative tracks with LUSTMORD, NEWS, WHIRLYWIRLD, HUGO KLANG, MAA, ORCHESTRA OF SKIN AND BONE, SLUB, DUMB AND THE UGLY, VHRIL, BORDEL MILITAIRE and THE WALKING KORPSES. John Murphy’s performances can also be heard on exclusive live recordings of BLOOD AXIS, SPK, WHITEHOUSE, NAEVUS, NIKOLAS SCHRECK, MY FATHER OF SERPENTS & DISCIPLES OF NONE and MANDRIX, while newly recorded personal dedications (partially making use of John Murphy recordings) come from OF THE WAND AND THE MOON, DIE WEISSE ROSE, GENOCIDE ORGAN, ANDREW KING and DAVID E. WILLIAMS. Last but not least there are his last live and studio recordings from March & May 2015 with THE GRIMSEL PATH, ZEENA SCHRECK and his last main band LAST DOMINION LOST.

This box set is limited to 750 copies and comes in a beautiful design by The Epicurean: Lavish black cardboard folder with full colour & gold print, containing three CDs housed in cardboard sleeves and an extensive 32-page booklet with texts by The Epicurean, Andrew King, Alan Bamford and Jon Evans, allowing for detailed insight in the three distinct periods of John Murphy’s musical career, as well as publishing unreleased photographs from his friends’ archives.

Extending the musical content and conceptual notions of the “Suicide Series” and the forthcoming “Golden Temple” album (early 2016, Raubbau), The Epciurean is delighted to offer an EP with brand new material, featuring the helping hands of Russian dark ambient artist Post Scriptvm on one track. Related to Nietzsche`s notion of the Wagerian music drama as a revelation of the abysmal truth about man, “In The Vortex of Dionysian Reality” allures us into the Dionysian dreamland, where tragedy reigns, in pursuit of the ultimate oneness.

With its washes of noise and layers of piercing high frequency feedback on a subbase of wavering synths, “In The Vortex of Dionysian Reality” is a maelstrom of sound generating a hallucinatory reality. The atmosphere oscillates between aggravating frenzy and the archaic and the sacral, serving the mythical experience of music in a realm where all other means of communication have failed and music figures as the primordial language.

“Snowdrops from a Curate's Garden” is a 2011 live recording of industrial veterans Last Dominion Lost with all exclusive, unreleased tracks. Active since 1992, Last Dominion Lost feature Jon Evans, John Murphy (Shining Vril, Krank, Ex-SPK/Whitehouse/Current 93) and Julian Percy. Through their pedigree, Last Dominion Lost are considered to justifiably carry the legacy of the legend that is SPK - and that’s also by their sound, as they stand for an undiluted brand of industrial music, combining shuddering analogue sounds, clanging metal rhythms and feedback with ritual percussion & chants. On “Snowdrops from a Curate's Garden” the main focus lies on the hypnotic, ritual and mental aspects of music, with an omnipresent metallic percussive backbone. It comes as no surprise to find the group reveling in dark subject matter like psychopathology, debasement and religious deviation, to which they manage to deliver an authentic soundtrack.

The LP is congruously accompanied by authentic photographs of the infamous Victorian era Lunatic Asylums in Kew and Beechworth, Australia. Last Dominion Lost take an ethically moved stance, commemorating the fact that from its beginnings as a penal colony, the majority of the early white Australians were drawn from the classes of the poor, dispossessed and desperate, long known as factors that encourage depression, alcoholism and psychological ill-being. The process of transportation was attended by squalor, disease and rape. These damaged individuals were then thrust into a harsh and alien environment, housed in circumstances worse than a modern refugee camp, and expected to build their own prisons – circumstances that effectively made mental illness was one of the colony's very first imports. From there the dismal history of mental hospitals took its course, evolving from incarceration over therapeutic occupation to, ultimately, medication. It is the practice of oppressing those who cannot “conform” to the norms imposed by the system, the root cause of the underlying aggression with which the Australian general public treated each other, and still continue to do.

This live album has been recorded at Kalyug Festival, Berlin in 2011 and is perfectly mastered by James Plotkin, providing the album a sharp, forceful & modern sound. Thus “Snowdrops from a Curate's Garden” can be considered the missing link between the grainy, demo-type 1990s recordings that became “The Tyranny of Distance” (Tesco, 2004) and the enthusiastically received “Towers Of Silence” album (The Epicurean / silken tofu, 2014), which displayed a very contemporary, indicatory approach at that classic industrial sound.

Seance is a retrospective of over a decade of concert performances by Post Scriptvm. This selection of 8 tracks, recorded at various locations, from 2003 through 2014, was carefully compiled to be listened to as a monolithic body of work, capturing the full spectrum of mind states and atmospheres conjured by PS – from the death-ambient claustrophobia of "Corners" and "Etherized Erosion", the hypnotizing analog textures of "Tarantula Pattern" and "The Binding", to the violent power electronics of "Exacerbation" and "Upon Decadent Scum".

Seance contains new, live versions of the tracks off every full-length studio album released by the project to date, making it an overview of Post Scriptvm’s‚ career, or a "Best of", presented live in concert. Mastered at the Trepan Studios, Brooklyn, NY, USA, April 2015.

KRANK, formerly also known as KRAANG in various spellings, is one of the main projects of prolific Australian drummer John Murphy (Shining Vril, Knifeladder, Last Dominion Lost, Ex-SPK). While doing percussion for a large number of bands on a regular basis, Murphy revives KRANK only in longer intervals, and shows up with a rare number of gigs and recordings. On this tape, which is the first official release by KRANK since the debut album “Chaos“ (Dark Vinyl, 1991), he shows that he is far more than just a percussionist, but also a virtuous sound manipulator and a master of sonic chaos. “NAOS Number 1”, which was recorded and produced together with Gerechtigkeits Liga`s Till Brüggemann in 2007 and 2012, is a twenty minute collage of abrasive noise particles, creepy voices and deranged fragments of percussion. In carefully chosen moments, the piece gives room to little islands of harmony, but at the same time avoids anything, that comes even close to a flow.

With their new project THE GRIMSEL PATH John Murphy and Jon Evans (Last Dominion Lost) team up again to further fathom their industrial roots. In the six fragmented tracks which were recorded live in Berlin 2012 a lot of sounds and structures echo the chaotic vortex of the longer KRANK piece – sampled sounds of dubious industrial origines, rudimentary beat particles, haunting voices and not at least a dark fatalistic atmosphere. Yet there is a subtle kind of order in every track, which makes this sonic journey more scenic and less unpredictable.

In Mumbai there are a number of brick towers, into which the Parsi people of India throw their dead ones, bound for their final journey up to heaven inside the vulture's bellies. This habit of sky burial derives from the Zoroastrian cult of Ancient Iran, where heaven was imagined as a very physical place. The towers, which remind of archaic silos, are called Dakhma or in English Towers of Silence.

The Australian unit LAST DOMINION LOST, originally founded in 1992 by Dominik Guerin (SPK) and Jon Evans, leave it to the listeners to guess where “Towers of Silence”, the allegorical title of their new album, really refers to – the fatal nature of physical life? The awkward edges between biological mortality and the idea of an eternal afterlife? The dreadful content which you may find inside what people built up? It's all open. One thing that LAST DOMINION LOST clearly show is how loud and infernal the silence of ending can be imagined. Screams of rage and anxiety intermingle with the shoutings of warriors – if the latter is not rather the croaking of vultures, which gather around corpses – until all is buried under an avalanche of infernal noise.

More than 20 years after the recordings for their debut album “The Tyranny of Distance” (Tesco, 2004), LAST DOMINION LOST come up with brand-new material recorded between 2012 and 2014, brilliantly mastered by James Plotkin in June 2014. Besides the core band members Jon Evans, John Murphy (Krank, Knifeladder, Shining Vril, Ex-SPK) and Julian Percy (Ratbag), “Towers of Silence” includes guest contributions by Ash Wednesday (Ex-Einstürzende Neubauten), Till Brüggemann (Gerechtigkeits Liga) and Annie Stubbs among others.

Super 8 short films and experimental movies of Mike Dando/CON-DOM, who has operated in the multimedia domains incorporating sound, film and performance since his early years. Dando confronts the audience in extreme ways, touching on taboo subjects suppressed or reduced to primitive stereotypes by the mass media of today. With a devastating barrage of noise he traces the unconscious religious subtext of modern mass society, cross-fades religious and political (border) phenomena and relates them with violent and pathological aspects. In the six short films, created in the 1980s to early 1990s and finally digitally restored in 2013, daily routine scenes are juxtaposed with grainy photos of criminals, dictators and clerics and book pages bearing crude, racist interpretations of Scripture, filmed line by line.

1 Impressions of a System 6:12
2 The Coming of Christ 13:35
3 Our Pleasure in the Pain/Vilification 8:42
4 All In Good Faith 1 14:18
5 All In Good Faith 2 (Get Right With God) 6:52
6 Hunger for Death 5:57